Robert Michael Blodgett 1950-2009

Update

Hello family,

Congratulations to Evan for completing the Eagle project!  Way to organize a community effort and execute service.

My apologies for the traumatic experiences that have occurred over the last little bit.  The car wreck, the bird carcass.  Dad if you give me 30% of your damage award, I will represent you in your claim against the other driver's insurance company.  Apparently, he was a 19 year old with marijuana paraphernalia on his way to nowhere so he probably is uninsured.  As to the cat's menacing behavior...I have no words. 

Is there something in our genes that makes us incapable of coping with our phobias?  I always thought Dad's inability to look at bees on a tv screen was a joke.  Over the last couple of years I have developed the same inability with regard to rodents on a tv screen.  I haven't always been this way.  It's probably something I can overcome if I focus.  

Melanie and I are sad that we are not able to attend the Boyer Family Reunion.  The more time we spend in Denver where we have no family, the more we learn that we enjoy being around family and want to live near family.  We are trying to figure a way to visit the family this summer.

Despite feeling landlocked and having no family around, we enjoy living in Denver.  I like the amenities of a large city.  Our ward is young, diverse, and politically charged.  It is filled with ambitious professionals and young families.  A sampling of sacrament meeting talks over this last winter:  one member announced that the "constitution hanging by a thread" prophecy had been fulfilled with the prop8 protests against Mormons in California.  A few weeks after that, another member claimed from the pulpit that, in time, church members will be apologizing for the Church's involvement in prop8 much like some do for polygamy and 1978.  Despite these distractions, Melanie and I are able to enjoy the plain and precious sacrament ordinance in our ward and we have developed close friendships with a number of people in the ward.  

This winter I decided to add more to my plate and I joined the Graduate Tax Program because, upon trying a tax class last fall, I discovered I enjoyed learning about it.  I am doing quite a bit of tax stuff at my work.  I think I enjoy learning/doing tax stuff because I learn more about money and I feel empowered knowing it.  Hmm...money and power.

I hope everyone has a good time at the reunion next week.

Ryan

sweetie strikes again....

Today was a day that shook me to the core.

My story begins Friday....

Me and the kids hadn't left the house all day and around 1 we drove over to mom's house to see what they were up too. I brought in my purse and cell phone (as I always do) and set them by the piano.

We had a nice time working and playing outside at mom's and then we went home around 5.

When we got home I set my purse on my dresser in my bedroom and went about my business to ready the kids for dinner and the evening. Periodically (later that evening), I would walk by my dresser and started to notice a foul smell. As it got later and later in the evening the smell got stronger and stronger and it was emanating from around my dresser.

It smelled like death. My biggest fear was that a mouse had found its way into one of my drawers and died amongst my garments. But I could not find the source of the smell. I will admit that my search wasn't as thorough as it should have been, out of pure fear of what I would discover.

So, I went to sleep, hoping that whatever it was, would just go away.

Saturday morning, I was going to run errands in the morning, so I got up, got dressed and grabbed my purse. AHA! I had found the source of the smell, (so, I thought)

The stench was coming from my purse. I pulled everything out and searched the inside of my bag, but nothing. Perhaps it was some food the kids ate that had turned bad....maybe....

Jokingly, as I left for the store I said to Michael..."It smells like something crawled into my purse and died..."

Well, as i was shopping, I looked in my OUTER pocket only to discover some type of mystery smoosh of grey matter. I gasped as the smell was POWERFUL at this point and was beginning to saturate all of the contents of my purse.

Horrified, I tried to look more closely at this 'thing' and could only make out, what I thought was some type of a claw. I had no idea what it could be, but I knew that it was alive at some point. I could barely have my purse on the seat next to me, I was so disgusted. At one point as I drove home, a plastic bag rustled in the back that made me yell out loud. This squished-up corpse had come back to life and was going to crawl up my arm....(so, I thought). I leaned as far as I could out the window on the way home. I wanted to be away from this dead thing and its smell.

I called Michael and informed him that I had a dire situation that he needed to deal with when I got home. I was tempted to light my purse on fire, and my clothes, and my cell phone...anything that was in my purse. (It didn't come to this) It hadn't touched anything, but was in the outer pocket alone.

When I got home I gave it to Michael to handle. He discovered a beak, a wing, and perhaps part of a leg. His conclusion...a baby bird.

Now, where the heck, could a baby bird have found its way into my purse? I hadn't left it outside and I only started smelling the rotting flesh yesterday.

Oh, that's right....I was at mom's for a couple of hours Friday where there lives a killer of birds....

I am blaming the 'squished bird in my purse' story on the beast they call sweetie...

Michael is the hero of this story and I forced him to take these disgusting pictures so I could document my most horrifying ordeal.

This was an experience that will haunt me.

Here are a few movie scenes I can now relate to:

1. horse head in the bed in the Godfather movie...

2. boiling rabbit in Fatal attraction come to mind.

Perhaps this cat has it out for me....

Can you handle this??? I can barely look at them...uggghhhllll